New profile on the Young Cultural Heritage Professionals series:

What was your motivation to enter the cultural heritage field? Was it your first option?

I consider myself, and I guess as most of my colleagues, a passionate of the cultural heritage field. For me heritage and culture are tools and at the same time goals, is our duty as a society to preserve it but at the same time we must not forget the people who is behind. It was and wasn’t at the same time my first option, I studied Tourism and later cultural tourism with the speciality of cultural heritage, looking for a practicality to the heritage further away of the academia and the mere documentation to specialize in his management.

How was/is your transition from studying to working?

I have been working as far as I can remember, started really young with scout volunteering and as soon I hit the 18 I started working the summers, in construction, as a waiter, in the logistics of a supermarket in a shoe store…etc. Now will make the year I completed my master studies and nine months I since I started working for a tour operator in Dublin.

How are you looking/looked for a job in heritage?  And how do you experience/experienced the phase of search and application?

I unsuccessfully tried to apply to the several openings that NGO opened to work in the field. I desisted on the search as soon I realized that the only important things that matter are having contact and experience. Now I would have more passive approach, open to opportunities and meeting projects.

What skills and competences do you notice are demanded the most in job offers?

Absurdly enough, experience is the most demanded skill. On a second place would be the connection, ability to connect and engage stakeholders.

Based on the profiles of job positions, do you notice skills or competences that your education didn’t provide you with?

No, I consider my education was pretty complete, it encompassed all the fundamental areas: Finance, Law, management, geography and art.

How do you think young people can be attracted to work in heritage? Do you have proposals?

Showing them that cultural heritage is a living being that cannot be preserved, but something attractive to work with, Inspiration to develop innovative ideas and a beacon for a better world.

How do you see the future of the cultural heritage field?

I see little change, cultural heritage has become excessively bureaucratic and too political in the last 50 years, since the first heritage convention. There is a need to have a new organization, responsible for managing, developing and protecting all cultural heritage expressions truly independent from governments and a more regionalistic approach.

About Heritageeks

HeritaGeeks is a group of close friends who met during the 2021 ILUCIDARE Summer School in Poland and who have been since trying to navigate the heritage sector together. Group members hold a critical perspective on heritage, while at the same time trying to uncover its assets for tackling diverse contemporary challenges and its power in bringing people together to act accordingly. In this sense, the group looks to the present and the future as much as it looks to the past. The overarching goal for their 2023 activities is to emphasize the way young professionals enter and get along in the heritage sector.